1. In the village of al-Shākhūra. [BACK]

2. The Huwala were a prominent group of Arabian tribes noted as excellent seafarers who were, in general, allied with the Safavid regime of Persia against other tribal groups in the region. [BACK]

3. The date is found by adding together the numerical values of the letters in the word shattatūhā: sh (300) + t (400) + t (400) + w (6) + h (5) + a (1) = A.H. 1112 ( = 1700–1 C.E.). [BACK]

4. Qaṭr al-nadā (Drops of Dew), by Hishām al-Anṣārī (d. 1360). [BACK]

5. Ibn al-nāẓim, a commentary on Alfiyyat Ibn Mālik by his son Badr al-Dīn (d. 1287). [BACK]

6. Al-Niִzām al-Nīsābūrī (d. ca. 1310). [BACK]

7. Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1365). [BACK]

8. The invaders, known in contemporary European sources as the “Muscat Arabs,” were the Ya‘riba dynasty (1624–1749) who ruled from their capital at Rustāq in Oman. They were Khārijites, belonging to a sect that first arose during the first great civil war of the nascent Islamic Empire (656–61). The birth of the movement is dated to the Battle of Siffīn in 657, when some of the supporters of ‘Alī, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, deserted him after he had engaged in unsuccessful negotiations with the forces of his enemy, Mu‘āwiya. They became known as the Khārijites, or “Deserters.” Adherents of the sect subsequently settled in eastern Arabia and have dominated the region of Oman until the present day. The Ya‘riba contingent recognized their leader as Imām, both political and spiritual leader. See S. B. Miles, The Countries and Tribes of the Persian Gulf (London: Frank Cass, 1966), 201–64. [BACK]

9. The author would have been about twenty-four years old at this time. [BACK]

10. Tajrīd al-‘aqā’id, the famous work on dogma by Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (d. 1274); the “Old Commentary” is the Tashyīd by Maḥmūd ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1348); see Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1943–49), Supp. Vol. I:925–26. [BACK]

11. Probably the unsuccessful rebellion of 1744 led by Taqiyy Khān against Nādir Shāh; al-Baḥrānī reports that he was Friday prayer leader in Shiraz when Nādir Shāh, whom he describes as an oppressive tyrant, took the throne in 1735. [BACK]

12. Reading wa- for fī in the text. [BACK]

13. A rebuttal to Ibn Abī Ḥadīd's famous commentary on the Nahj al-balāgha, the popular collection of ‘Alī's speeches and sayings. [BACK]